The 22 best colleges for your money

A college education is a huge investment of both time
and money — so it's helpful to know which schools and
programs are worth it.

Aubrey Bach, PayScale's head of alumni
analytics, tells Business Insider: "PayScale's College ROI
Report gives students and their families access to this
exact information so that they can decide which school is the
best fit for their career goals and their financial situation."

PayScale says, however, that this doesn't mean students
should pursue only majors with the highest earning potential
or make decisions about where to attend school based solely off
college ROI rankings. They need to do what will make them happy —
but it doesn't hurt to be educated on their potential
return.

All data used to produce PayScale's Return on Investment Package
were collected from employees who successfully completed
PayScale's employee survey. To calculate the ROI, PayScale looked
at the investment in each college, which includes the cost of
attending, as calculated by the cost for a graduate in 2015, on
and off campus — and then looked at the 20-year return for each
college, which is the expected future income stream. (Click
here to
read more about the methodology.)

See the full interactive list here, and keep
scrolling for the top 22 colleges for your money. (The "total
cost" and "20 year ROI" figures are for students who live on
campus.)